Crestwood Court
' Crestwood Court', formerly known as Crestwood Plaza and Westfield Crestwood, is an enclosed shopping mall in Crestwood, Missouri. Opened in 1957, it is widely known as the first major mall in the St. Louis area, and one of the first to have more than one department store. The mall previously included Macy's, Dillard's and Sears as anchor stores, all three of which are had initially gone vacant, resulting the mall initially being rendered a "dead mall". Macy's and Sears have since reopened and the Crestwood Court has been renovated to gain back several shops while adding in new stores and a new second and third floor in 2013. A new section with a new anchor store, JCPenney, was added in the process. Crestwood Court is currently owned by a joint venture between Mills Corporation, GGP, and Simon Property Group. History Crestwood Plaza has its mark in history as the first regional mall in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Local retail developer Louis Zorensky developed the mall in 1957. Its original anchor stores included local department store Scruggs, Vandervoort and Barney (later Famous-Barr, then Macy's) and Sears, making one of the first major malls to have more than one anchor store, and the first to utilize a split-level parking lot to allow direct access to both floors of the anchors. Zorensky later developed a second St. Louis mall, Northwest Plaza, which opened in 1963. In 1967, Crestwood was expanded, adding Stix Baer & Fuller (later Dillard's) as a third anchor. The mall was the subject of a 1975 lawsuit related to a Kroger supermarket that formerly operated within it. The suit was filed after Kroger moved to a new store across the street in 1972 and subleased its space in the mall to Tipton Electronics. Mall owners wanted to terminate the lease with Kroger, but Kroger wanted to maintain the sub-lease. The suit ruled in Kroger's favor. Originally an open-air mall, Crestwood Plaza was enclosed in 1984. A Woolworth store at the mall closed in 1988, and was replaced by 18 smaller stores a year later. Westfield Group purchased Crestwood Plaza in 1998 and renamed it Westfield Shoppingtown Crestwood. The company sold two other St. Louis-area malls to CBL & Associates Properties in 2007, but did not include Crestwood in the sale. It had previously attempted to sell the mall to Somera Capital Management in 2006, but the deal was not completed. The mall was ultimately sold to Centrum Properties and renamed Crestwood Court. Also in 2007, Dillard's closed its store in the mall due to decreased sales. Famous-Barr had also announced plans to relocate to a new outdoor mall in Sunset Hills, but remained at Crestwood after the Sunset Hills development was canceled. The Crestwood store closed as a Macy's in 2009, leaving Sears as the only anchor. The loss of anchor stores resulted in increasing vacancies throughout Crestwood Court. Although Centrum initially planned to redevelop the center as a lifestyle center, it filled more than half of the mall with art-oriented tenants, such as art galleries and dance studios. Sears closed in April 2012 due to declining sales. As of late 2012, the only remaining tenant was a LensCrafters. The mall concourses were initially closed off on July 11, 2013, leaving only LensCrafters, which had an exterior entrance. Afterwards, the building mostly was filled with empty shops and art galleries, rendering the mall entirely useless to secular people. Redevelopment and new management In September 2013, GGP and Simon bought the mall from Centrum, and are in the process of redeveloping it. The LensCrafters was allowed to stay open, but the art gallery places were swiftly evicted, and a large-scale renovation was declared underway. The mall's ownership was split between other companies, which included Mills Corporation, Simon Malls, and GGP. The land was soon expanded in order to build a redesigned main floor, this was also in order to build AMC Theatres, Cabela's, Dillard's, and more stores, along with various new stores and establishments. The Cabela's stretches over the road between the store and the other stores. Several roads were relocated and slightly modified to help this expansion. Mall infastructure The renovated and reopened Crestwood Court features a totally rebuilt from-the-ground-up lower floor and main floor, food courts (located on the lower level), and a special corridor named "Crestwood Central" with entrances to Macy's, Sears, Bally Total Fitness, and the aforementioned AMC and Cabela's. Crestwood Central stores are classed as a different part of the mall as they are built in a different phase from the rest of the mall. See also * Crestwood Court/Mall directory Category:Malls Category:Simon Malls Category:Crestwood Court Category:Missouri Category:Canon Malls